All that would suggest that Google Street View has limited value there. But a pitch to Google from an Inuit man brought a tricycle fitted with Google’s camera system to the streets of Cambridge Bay on Monday as part of what the company expects to become a long-term project in Canada’s Far North.

I love this story for many reasons. First, Google Street View is actually a lawsuit magnet and the object of regulatory scrutiny in many overseas areas, so placing a story about how someone in a small village asked for it and how Google responded is definitely at the high end of the "degree of difficulty" scale.

It's also a reminder that Google's core business is still growing - another important PR point for the company at a time when many are looking sideways at their hardware products.